One More Time To Live
by MeadowWard
Summary: "We really must work on your timing, darling." When a mission goes poorly and Grant is presumed dead, Jemma is left behind to mourn him. When he is later found alive, all her hopes for a second chance at happiness are dashed when his affection for her is inexplicably replaced with loathing. What happened to him while he was missing? What will become of them? (Biospec no-Hydra AU.)
1. Prologue: Procession-Desolation

**A/N:** Hello again! Here is something I've had in the works since before I finished "High Society". I just didn't feel right writing or posting it while HS sat unfinished. Now that that story is over, I'm so excited to show everyone something new and different for me. Here's a few things I want to go over before I begin:

 _This story is so AU, it hurts._ Canon will be referenced frequently but will look very different. Episodes from season 1 and 2 may appear in a rewritten form, but when that happens, I won't be going in order (ex. episode 8 from season 1 might appear before episode 6, and events from episode 13 are referenced as occurring before this story starts).

 _This a no-Hydra AU._ Hydra will not even be mentioned, and Grant will never betray the team.

 _Canon-compliant violence and peril will occur._ I will try to tag appropriately.

The title and all the chapter titles for this fic are lyrics from The Moody Blues' album, "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour".

I'll be posting previews, songs, side stories, and maybe even art for this story on my tumblr. You can find me at .com.

Happy reading and please review!

 **Prologue: Procession/Desolation**

The clock was ticking. Literally. Each small "beep" that marked the passing seconds echoed in her ears like a gunshot. She tried, in vain, to steady her shaking hands but couldn't. She would have to work through her trembles, she thought, as she plunged her hands into the tangle of wires on the bomb with determination. Somebody had activated the system's rather rudimentary self-destruct, then smashed the device so it could not be circumvented, the wires and buttons becoming a sparking, knotted mass. It was impossible to make a cut with certainty, and without risking premature detonation. Grant knew how to disarm bombs, but that was when the mechanics were all intact. No doubt he would be just as helpless as she.

She felt a hand on her shoulder when the count read "2:00". Two minutes left.

"Jemma." Grant said. And so much more was left unspoken.

She shook her head at him. "I can fix this. I just… I need more time." _And Fitz's mind. And Skye's confidence. And…_ She stopped short of considering what she needed from Grant. "More time" sufficed there too.

"There is no more time." he whispered. She continued to fumble with the wires, to try to make sense of the jumble, but it was no use. Eventually, Grant took her by the wrist. Gently, ever so gently, as he always was with her.

"Skye ran already. You should run, too. Get to the extraction point."

She looked at his face, handsome even with his lip split and bleeding, a bruise blooming on his left cheekbone. His strong arms, his wide shoulders, his narrow waist, each part of him so familiar to her. She glanced down at his legs. obscured under came tactical gear, a bullet wound rendering the left one nearly useless. He bled freely from the hole in his thigh, staining the gray pattern a dull berry color, and he was forced to lean heavily against the exposed concrete wall, keeping most of his weight off his injured leg.

If she ran, he would not be able to run with her. He would never say admit as much aloud, but Jemma was certain of that.

"What about you?" she wondered, tearfully.

"I'll cover you. Pick off any stragglers. Do what I have to do to get you out of that door." He brandished his firearm for emphasis. He forced a smile, but it didn't comfort her. His eyes, like hers, seemed to fill with tears. "I know we never… I never said…" He was searching for words and failing. It was all right. She already knew.

Jemma placed one hand on his face, cupping his cheek. His stammering stopped at once. "We really must work on your timing, darling." she said, and kissed him softly, quick and pure.


	2. Chapter 1: Every Happy Ending Needs

**Chapter One: Every Happy Ending Needs To Have A Start**

 **A/N:** Formatting on ff dot net continues to be a nightmare. I've inserted something like line breaks where needed. It's not pretty, but it'll do.

"Just tell me what you remember."

Briefings following missions were standard operating procedure in any organization worth its salt, SHIELD included. Of the three agents who had been sent into the field, only two were reporting back; the third was missing, presumed dead, but their objective had been completed and so the mission was deemed successful.

Jemma felt tears pricking at her eyes, which she hurried to wipe back with grimy, stained fingers. Any number of microscopic foreign matter had accumulated under her fingernails, the unavoidable result of having to quite literally claw her way out of the secret base just as it was collapsing; dirt, for certain. The naturally occurring sediment of the remote location. She had felt broken glass under her hands a few times, so it was entirely possible there was blood, too. She didn't know. She almost didn't care.

It was supposed to be an easy mission. Covert. In and out. Grant and Skye were assigned to gain intel on a lab suspected of performing cruel experiments on humans. Little was known about the organization that called itself Centipede; just that they were operating without oversight, outside of every known system of laws, and SHIELD, the FBI, Homeland Security… no one was willing to make arrests without concrete, undeniable evidence. Team Bus had been ordered to surreptitiously gather such evidence. Being that it was a lab and labs were _kind of_ her "thing", Jemma had asked (begged) to tag along. Grant frowned at her request, an expression that deepened when Coulson acquiesced, citing her general knowledge about laboratories and experimentation as potentially useful.

She would never forgive herself for forcing her way into the mission.

Grant tried his best to prepare her. Loaded her down in Kevlar, handed her an ICER and reminded her (twice) to check the safety before shooting. Bringing her along was a risk, one he hated taking. But if she was going to insist on joining the mission, he'd said to her, he was going to do his best to keep her safe.

Skye, who had silently watched them prepare, teased them both. "That was almost romantic, Ward." she said, ignoring his scowl and Jemma's eye roll.

"Jemma?"

Coulson's kind, patient voice broke her out of the trance-like state remembering had put her in.

"We got made pretty quickly." she said at last. The fullness of her own voice surprised her. "No one even tried to stop us at first. They just abandoned the specimens and activated the self-destruct."

"Your kevlar showed some evidence of action. Were there gunshots?"

She nods. "Some. Later. I was trying to collect samples and came under fire. Gr- Agent Ward… fought them off." And that was most likely where he sustained the worst of his injuries. Standing in the lab, she was exposed. He willingly put himself between her and the gunfire.

"Skye said she got out well before you did. Can you explain what happened in the gap?"

Jemma's chin trembled, the tears that had been welling in her eyes threatening to spill over. From beside Coulson, May, who had been sitting as a silent witness to the briefing, warned him.

"Phil," is all she said, her voice laced with caution.

He looked at her and an unspoken conversation passed between them solely through glances. HIs gaze returned to Jemma a minute later.

"I know it's painful, Jemma. And I know you and Agent Ward are -were- close, but whatever you can bear to tell me, I'd love to hear it."

She nodded, but her throat suddenly felt thick, like a knot had settled into her trachea, making it impossible to swallow, let alone speak. When she did manage to answer him, her voice sounded thin. Strangled.

"I wanted to save the people." she said, fighting back sobs. "They were experimenting on humans. People, sir, who didn't deserve to die. So I tried to dismantle the self-destruct. Only they'd smashed it, and I'm not a bloody engineer, and I failed." She looked up towards the ceiling. Beyond the walls of the Bus, they were surrounded by sky. The gentle hum of the engines, usually such a comfort, a gentle white noise, made her inexplicably angry. "I wasted precious seconds down there. Grant was injured and waited with me. If I hadn't tried to stop it, we would've had time." And only she knew exactly what she meant when she said "time".

"You can't think like that." Coulson said, but his plea fell on deaf ears.

xxxxxxxxxx

Once Jemma finished her portion of the briefing, Fitz accompanied her back to her bunk, taking her carefully by her arm and walking on her left side. She had just enough presence of mind to recognize this as strategic on his part. Walking to the bunks (which Skye had affectionately -if somewhat tackily- named "Sleep Row") from Coulson's office meant walking right past Grant's bunk, which was located at the front of the row, just to the right of her own. There was no avoiding it. Fitz obviously just didn't want her to have to make that initial walk alone. She nearly resented his consideration; she was no delicate flower, but she refrained from scolding him. She knew he meant well. He was just trying to protect her.

She hated that she needed protecting.

He asked if there was anything he could do for her. She said no. He offered to check on her later. She refused, saying she'd be fine. She just wanted to rest. It was with great, obvious reluctance that Fitz finally closed her door.

Only when she heard the sound of his footsteps departing did Jemma let the tears, which she'd been fighting back all afternoon, fall. Great, giant tears that streamed down her cheeks hotly, huge sobs that racked her petite frame with violent shudders. She gasped for breath, her lungs burning for air, but no matter how much she took in it never felt like enough. She was drowning. No, she was _dying._ Her senses grew duller and duller, her vision blurring at the edges until her sight was fuzzy and narrow, until all she heard was her own weeping and a soundless voice in her head that repeated the horrible, impossible truth.

Grant was gone. Grant was gone.

It didn't seem real.

They shared a wall. The six inches of drywall between her room and his sometimes felt like a thousand miles. Perhaps that was why it was so easy for her to imagine he was just on the other side, laying in his bed, reading Hemingway or Tolstoy or whatever else his former SO had suggested. His boots would be off, placed neatly by the door with the laces tucked in. She could picture him perfectly, vividly, having walked in to find him leisure reading a handful of times herself. One hand would be holding the book, the other would be tucked behind his head, beneath his pillow. She could call from memory the gentle sound of his breathing, the steady rise and fall of his chest. "Steady" was a good word to describe Grant. He was never given to swings of emotion, always even-keeled either through training or by force of will. She knew enough about his past to marvel at his fortitude.

She knocked three times on their wall (when had it become "their wall", she wondered). It was a signal he'd come up with for them some time ago; she couldn't pinpoint exactly when. Occasionally, he was sent out independently by Agent Hand, or he was on a stakeout before a mission, or Coulson was Coulsoning, etcetera etcetera… there were any number of reasons that would take him away from the Bus while she stayed behind, and the times he returned were not always within usual waking hours. When that was the case, whenever he returned, he'd knock three times on their wall. He was back. He was safe.

She knocked three times again. She knew there would be no answer.

xxxxxxxxxx

Grant was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for his bravery, bestowed privately and with very little fanfare. So, too, was the addition of his name on the Wall of Valor at the Operations training facility. Secret agents didn't get camera ops with the President and congressmen. It was too risky. In the stead of his long-absent family, Jemma, accompanied by an intentionally stoic Coulson, accepted the accolades. She placed the medal, the plaque commemorating his addition to the Wall of Valor, a folded American flag, and Grant's badge into a shadow box made of polished walnut wood. Then she hid it under her bed.

A private memorial, attended only by the five remaining members of the Bus team, was to be held in the common room. There would be no funeral. Given that SHIELD had tried to search the lab without a warrant (and as it was not possible present their evidence of due diligence without possibly jeopardizing the larger mission at hand), they could not be seen combing through the rubble in hopes of finding a body. Therefore, there was nothing to bury.

Jemma was the last to arrive for the memorial. The others, murmuring quietly amongst themselves as she entered, quickly fell into a hush. They had all dressed for the occasion; Coulson in his usual suit, May in a black dress, Skye in a white blouse and black shirt, Fitz in a gray button up with black pants.

The only one to break rank, Jemma wore a pretty, sky-blue dress. Grant had once commented how nice she looked in blue.

Music was playing over the loudspeaker. It was the first time she could remember the speakers being used for anything but in-house communication. She recognized it as a song by one of Grant's favorite bands, The Moody Blues.

" _Memories can never take you back home sweet home,"_ came the singer's clear, strong voice. "Y _ou can never go home anymore_."

While the music was triumphant, the lyrics were bleak; the mood in the room was fittingly solemn. No one spoke for a long time. Eventually, Coulson went to the bar and withdrew a single unopened beer. He removed the cap with a tool from his pocket, said something about Grant, took a sip, and passed it to Skye. She repeated the process, speaking and following it with a sip of beer before passing the bottle to Fitz. Jemma heard their voices, recognized the cadence of their speech, but couldn't decipher meaning from them. It all sounded jumbled to her, garbled somehow. What was the language in that silly computer game Fitz used to play? Simlish? It was like that. It was not English, or Spanish, or any language she knew. Unlike their speeches, she could still hear the music, loud and clear.

" _All my life I never really knew me 'til today; now I know I'm just another step along the way."_

"Jemma?"

May was beside her, the bottle outstretched in her direction. Her hand shook as she took it. She hadn't prepared to say anything; she didn't know if anything would come out if she tried. Words didn't seem… sufficient, somehow. No words easily came to mind when she tried to capture the expanse her feelings for Grant, to describe how wonderful a man he was, how dear he had been to her, the quiet and steady way he had loved her, and how her body threatened to bend under the weight of her despair now that he was gone.

"You can never go home anymore," she sang quietly in time with the song, soft enough that only May, who stood beside her, seemed to hear. Then, she drank the last of the beer -far more than the sip she was entitled to- before setting it on the coffee table and walking quickly away.

xxxxxxxxxx

Not two days had passed after the memorial when Skye interrupted Jemma at her lab by tossing a crumpled sheet of paper her way. It was newly wrinkled, as Jemma remembered printing it out on pristine white paper just that morning and posting it on the inside of the door to her materials closet.

She glanced at it only briefly before responding. "The five stages of grief. I've been doing some reading about the grieving process." She rattled off her feelings about the stages quickly. "It's mostly psychobabble, but quite a bit of information has been published by reputable sources. I think I have curated a rather exhaustive list of resources. Estimating conservatively, I could easily move through one stage every two weeks."

"Wait. Hold up." Skye raised her left hand in a gesture to "stop". "You're trying to _science_ through your grieving process?"

"Why not? I 'science' through everything else."

"Jemma, come on. That's psychotic." Skye ended with a snort, making it clear that she meant it as a joke, but Jemma was not amused.

She bristled, her eyes narrowed. "No offense, Skye, but that word doesn't mean what you think it means."

"Fine… but you have to agree that this isn't normal."

"Fair enough. This _isn't '_ normal'." She yanked her goggles off in one jerky motion. The elastic band tugged painfully at a few strands of her hair, serving to further enrage her. "None of this is normal. I have an IQ over 140. So does Fitz. You're a genius in your own right. May is one super serum injection away from being Captain America, and we all are led by a dead man." She rounded the lab table, entering Skye's space. As Jemma encroached on her space, Skye backed away, her hands raised. "We aren't normal. How Grant died isn't normal. We live in a giant plane and do secret work for a government spy agency. _This is not normal!_ " She flung the goggles towards a stack of (fortunately empty) glass beakers. Her throw connected dead in the center of the stack, and they tumbled like bowling pins, crashing to the ground and shattering into a hundred million pieces with a beautiful tinkling sound. Silence passed between the two women as they stared each other down. There were tears in Skye's eyes, but Jemma's were strangely dry.

The voice she spoke with next was low, raspy; she hardly recognized it as her own. "You can't apply the restriction of 'normal' to extraordinary circumstances, Skye."

They both stood stock-still for what seemed like forever until eventually Fitz entered the lab carrying a sandwich. He took one look at the women and at the mess before declaring warily, "So… something's happened."

"An accident." Jemma answered in that same low tone. Skye didn't contradict her. She left without another word.

As soon as she was gone, Jemma went over to the mess, sweeping up the shards with her bare hands. Fitz quickly dropped his sandwich onto the counter and rushed at her.

"Jemma, no! What are you doing?" He tried to get at the broken glass with the broom and dustpan they kept in the lab for this exact purpose, but she blocked him.

"I can do it." she stated evenly. At first, she didn't notice the red that was beginning to mingle with the shards.

"Jemma. You're bleeding."

Oh. That explained that. She looked down at her hands. Her palms were shredded with shallow, superficial cuts. She didn't even feel them, but the sight of her own blood was enough to put her off the task. She had crouched to clean up the glass and now rocked back into a seated position, staring at her palms, blood slowly oozing from the countless cuts. She was lucky that none of the splinters had lodged themselves in her skin.

Fitz quickly sprang into action. He pulled Jemma to her feet by her wrists, walking her to the sink and placing her hands under cool running water. Her injuries -coupled with her eerie calm- must have shaken him; he was confusing first aid protocol for lacerations with first aid protocol for burns but Jemma didn't correct him. The water felt nice, comforting even. As she stood with her hands rinsing, he made quick work of the broken glass and ran a sanitizer over the floor where her blood still flecked the tile. When all this was done, he put on gloves and took care of her hands. She swallowed a comment about him not having his field medicine qualification and sat in silence as he dabbed at her cuts with peroxide before wrapping her wounds carefully with long swaths of sterile gauze.

"Oh, Fitz," she said softly. "You've always taken such good care of me."

He didn't reply immediately. Only when he'd taped the last wrap in place did he say, "You're worth taking care of, Jemma."

"Am I? Seems like all I do is make trouble for everyone." A dry chuckle inexplicably escaped her throat. "It wasn't the first time Grant almost died for me. Just the unlucky time where he did." It wasn't funny, but she was laughing. _Oh,_ she thought. _Is this what it's like to become hysterical?_

Fitz had the good sense to wait to speak again until her laughter died away, dissolving into quiet tears. It wasn't a long wait, but he was quick to put a consoling arm around Jemma's shoulder as soon as she transitioned from one emotion to another. "Grant knew the risks." he said. "He knew."

"I know he knew. It was his job to assess risks. And he asked me to stay behind, but I _made_ him take me along."

"No one ever made Grant do anything."

"I could. And I did."

"Correlation does not equal causation, Jemma."

"We're going to argue the data now, are we?" She shrugged off his arm but didn't walk away.

"I'm not trying to argue anything." He had resumed his gentler tone, trying to defuse her tension.

Her fists were clenched tightly at her sides. They strained against the gauze, her knuckles turning white. The cuts on her palms all protested, but she ignored the pain easily. It was nothing more than pinpricks compared to how she felt in her heart. In her heart was an agony without equal.

"I'll never forgive him for dying." she whispered to Fitz. _And I'll never stop feeling like I killed him,_ she said only to herself.

xxxxxxxxxx

Grant's room was left in stasis for a month out of respect. There were no written rules or agreements to that effect, but it was a common unspoken practice in SHIELD concerning fallen agents, a courtesy tracing all the way back to Peggy Carter herself. When the time came to clean it out, Fitz asked her to come with, but Jemma refused to take part. She remained in her room for the duration of the cleanup, but given that her room and his shared a wall, she couldn't help but hear the thumps and bangs of reorganization and the occasional sound of muffled crying from both Skye and Fitz. She opened her door just as they finished, walking out with several boxes worth of belongings. Both of their faces were puffy and red. Skye's nose was running. They nodded to acknowledge her, but neither met her eyes as they hurried away towards Coulson's office, all of Grant's earthly possessions in their arms.

The door had been left open. Her eyes traveled into the room out of habit, before she had the consciousness of mind to stop herself. It had been stripped bare. Every personal touch Grant had contributed to the room (and there were so few, anyway) was gone. The linens had been removed. All that remained was the small nightstand with a lamp on top of it, and the mattress. Identical to how the bunks all looked the day they moved in. It was like Grant had never been there at all.

The following day, Coulson called Jemma into his office. He somewhat timidly asked how she was holding up.

"I'm doing great!" she replied with forced brightness. "Work, work, work." The team had been generously given an extended bereavement leave and were therefore not completing missions at the moment, but she found ways to keep busy. In addition to what she saw and filmed at the laboratory, Skye had managed to hack into their mainframe and download several flash drives worth of stolen research. Deciphering it took up most of her time, occupying her mind enough to scarcely have a moment to take a break, let alone grieve.

"Are you eating enough?"

She didn't answer.

From beneath his desk, Coulson withdrew a small, rectangular cardboard box.

"Most of the things in Grant's room were SHIELD-issued and had to be returned." he said. "What's here is what's his."

She didn't reach for it.

"Jemma?"

She met his gaze with some reluctance. "What do you expect from me, sir?"

He blinked. "I… thought you'd want Grant's things."

"Why? Because I… he was special to me?"

"Well, yes-"

"- I don't want them." That wasn't quite true. It was taking every ounce of her willpower to not grab the box and rush back to her room to rummage through it. "I don't deserve them." That was nearer the truth, but still lacking.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it, sir." She stood to her feet, the action so sudden and jerky it nearly knocked her chair over. "I cared for him, and he cared for me, and it got him killed. If it weren't for me, Grant might be alive. If it weren't for me…" she closed her eyes, willing back tears, her jaw clenched. "I've been given his medal of honor, his folded flag, his badge. I was given _those_ things because he died. I won't take anything that belonged to him in life. I don't deserve them." she ended by repeating her earlier statement, and after having spent the last few weeks skirting the truth, found herself hitting the proverbial nail on its head quite unintentionally.

Coulson opened his mouth to protest, but before he could say anything more, Jemma begged to be dismissed.

"I would like to go now, sir," she said.

He sighed. It was evident her reaction had upset him, which she understood was no small feat. Phil was usually so unflappable, but she recognized the way his eyes shone at her. It was the same look she'd been given when she received Grant's medal, when they'd unveiled his name. Phil pitied her. More than pitied her; he was worried for her.

Prior to the accident, Jemma would've hated to be on the receiving end of such a look. It wasn't that she considered herself above pity, but her drive to please people had so far kept her out of situations where she'd earn it. One rarely put themselves in the position to be pitiable when one rarely left the confines of her pristine lab, or the safe circle of her coworkers. As it was now, his look left her unaffected. She was neither moved to tears nor anger by his show of emotion. In fact, she felt… oddly still inside. It was not peace, not at all. It was nearer to disinterest. It was not willpower that kept Phil's sympathy from moving her. It was detachment.

"You're dismissed." he finally answered. She was grateful to withdraw. She had much to consider and wanted to do so in the safety of her room.

xxxxxxxxxx

She sat atop her unmade bed, looking out the tiny bedside window. It was night. They were in the air, heading… somewhere. They moved the Bus every few days; it wasn't wise to keep a mobile base parked and vulnerable for longer than that. Someone had told her where they were going, but she'd already forgotten. She had trouble remembering these days. Variables like location didn't hold the value they once did. She saved her effort for the constants. Her work. Her friends. Her family.

She'd ignored the stages of grief ever since that day in the lab when she'd broken all the beakers. She couldn't tell which stage she was in now. In Phil's office, she felt detached. In private, she felt in flux. She swung between total emotional shutdown and nervous breakdown in the course of minutes.

She didn't consider it an exaggeration to say she felt as volatile as Fukushima; a nuclear reactor in a cage of flimsy bones.

xxxxxxxxxxx

A few days later, the box made its way to her room.

She walked in from a long day in the lab, so tired she was practically dead on her feet, to find the container holding Grant's things sitting unopened on top of her unmade bed. The tape was intact. Not even Coulson had gone through it, apparently.

"Is this a joke?" she whispered to herself.

"Not a joke," a voice behind her said. She turned quickly to find May standing just a few feet behind her, her face serious. "You're avoiding. You're numbing. It's unhealthy. It's why you feel so unstable." She took a few steps closer to Jemma, pointed at the box for emphasis. "You need closure. You're not going to find it by going numb. You're going to find it by facing the past."

As always, May revealed herself to be the most insightful person on board the Bus. Her silence meant she heard, and saw, and perceived without having to filter through her own inane chatter. Whereas everyone else had been trying and failing to pinpoint what was wrong with Jemma, May named it right away. Jemma was not surprised.

Hesitantly, she ran a finger over the edge of the cardboard, a reflection of what she was doing within; she was skating around facing the issue, dancing about the edge but never immersing herself. She feared what would happen if she looked inside.

"What would Grant want?" May asked.

He'd want hearing his name to not feel like a white-hot knife through her heart, for starters, she thought dryly. "I don't know." she admitted aloud. She didn't feel comfortable asserting what he may or may not have wanted from her in this instance.

"I do. And so do you. He wouldn't want you to hurt like this forever, Jemma." May was behind her now. She withdrew a blade from somewhere (it happened so fast Jemma didn't see it drawn, nor did she see it returned to its hiding place) and slashed through the tape. The flaps sprung open easily, revealing the contents. It wasn't much. Coulson warned her of that. His earthly possessions were few. Few, but precious, and with his passing, they were now invaluable.

She looked warily at the small stash of belongings and in her heart, she knew May was right. What she was doing… it was the opposite of healthy. Thinking that whatever the box held would help her sublimate was naive, no doubt; but Grant would want her to try. She was still reticent to assume his will, but she could be certain of that.

xxxxxxxxxx

The rest of the night was devoted to the items in the box. Jemma took careful inventory, categorizing the contents by laying them out on her bed. Books went in one stack. There were three; "Matterhorn" which didn't surprise her; "Fairoaks", and one she recognized: "When We Were Very Young" by A.A. Milne. That was one she'd lent him, but only after _he'd_ bought it for her (she'd mentioned her fondness for the book of children's poetry in passing once, and he surprised her with a secondhand copy some time later). She let out a little cry to see it again and hurried to check his bookmark. Yes, he'd been reading it. He'd left his marker on a poem she recognized from her childhood and read through the familiar final stanza of "Spring Morning":

 _Where am I going? I don't quite know._

 _What does it matter where people go?_

 _Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-_

 _Anywhere, anywhere._ ** _I_** _don't know._

She returned the bookmark to its place and quickly set the volume aside after that.

Clothing and jewelry went in one pile; the few articles of clothing in the box were neatly folded and the jewelry (a watch, a necklace, and a ring) was placed with care on top. His pocket knife was a category all its own. It wasn't a SHIELD-issued tool, but had come from somewhere else. Initials were burned into the wooden handle. She wondered if it was an heirloom. Only one item didn't make it onto her bed; his boots. Instead, she placed them by her bedroom door, standing them upright with the laces tucked in, just the way he had kept them in his room.

She arranged the items in a line so they only took up one vertical half of her mattress, then laid down beside them. Her fingers ran absently over each object, a lazy, undefined pattern of circles and lines that soon lulled her to sleep.

xxxxxxxxxx

Another month passed. During that time, the shrine of Grant's belongings stayed on Jemma's bed, though the contents slowly dwindled. One by one, she put the things away, returning them to their box (and in the case of the book of poetry, she returned it to her shelf). His boots remained by the door. Soon, only two items remained on the bed; Grant's pocket-knife, and his ring.

She had just placed the knife in the box when she picked up the ring. It wasn't flashy; just a circle of stainless steel. The only distinctive features were two black ceramic strips that ran parallel round the outside. It was much too big for her, even if she wore it on her thumb. If she remembered correctly, it was from a mission; specifically, that undercover mission where Grant and May had pretended to be a married couple. The usual field complications aside (no matter how thorough their preparations, certain things couldn't be planned and accounted for in advance), she had _hated_ that mission and childishly refused to talk to him when they had first returned to the Bus. As she held the ring in her palm, she remembered that that mission had started it all for them… whatever they were. Her jealousy had been palpable when she gave Grant his post-mission physical (the man sustained injuries nearly every mission, and it only later dawned on her that he might have been allowing himself to receive minor wounds just to have an excuse to see her). She hadn't said a word as she treated him, which was odd for her. She was abrupt in her movements, forceful in how she maneuvered him to inspect the bruises on his arm, the cut on his cheek.

He had taken her gently by the wrist. There was nothing overtly intimate about it, except for his tenderness, and his touch alone made her heart speed into a gallop.

She hadn't met his eyes even as she felt him search her face earnestly. Their height difference was such that, with her on her feet and him seated on a tall stool in the lab, they were level with one another. He didn't speak as he leaned into her, pressing his forehead against hers. A pleasant silence ensconced them, her jealousy, her anger, mission fatigue all dissolving into nothingness.

This is what they were to each other, she had thought at the time, and it was the stone on which they built the rest of their relationship. It was a connection that defied labeling. It was more than friendship. In some ways, it was more than love. It was understanding, and it was peace.

She clutched the ring tighter and went to her sparsely-supplied jewelry box. She didn't keep much in it as baubles were at best a hindrance and at worst a liability when she worked in the lab, but she possessed a handful of pretty things. She selected a silver necklace, removed its blue pendant, and replaced it with the ring before putting the thin chain around her neck. When tucked into her shirt, the ring would rest against her breastbone.

Right next to her heart.


	3. Chapter 2: The Show Has Just Begun

**Chapter 2: The Show Has Just Begun**

"I want you to train me."

So Jemma said to May the very next day. The older agent didn't seem surprised by the request. Quite the contrary; she nearly looked amused.

Well… as amused as May could look, at least.

"Thinking of retaking your field certification?" she asked.

Jemma wrinkled her nose. If it were possible to _fail_ a test with flying colors, she had so done with her field certification. "Not quite."

"Oh?"

"It occurred to me that the incident at the Centipede lab may have been better managed if I had more sufficient weapons and self-defense training."

May's face, previously inscrutable, became colored with concern. "Jemma, you can't think like that."

"This isn't about Grant." she was quick to say, and it was mostly true. This wasn't about Grant as much as it was about who remained of Team Bus. No doubt there would be future scrapes. She was determined to be better prepared for those instances.

She couldn't bear to lose anyone else, least of all due to her own insufficiency.

"It isn't?" May was beholding her with a suspicious gaze.

"No." she insisted. "This is about me. _I_ want to be able to defend myself, if and when the need to do so should arise."

At first, May did not respond; instead, she continued to stare at Jemma, studying her face intently, as if to divine some meaning Jemma had concealed. She grew more nervous with every second, afraid May would say no; and then where would she be?

But, "Okay." is what May said when she at last acquiesced, and Jemma felt positively flooded with relief.

xxxxxxxxxx

Jemma made similar requests of her other team members throughout that day. She knew she would never be as ingenious as Fitz (strictly in an engineering sense, of course), but she saw no issues with improving her skills. Fitz would give her lessons every few days. She didn't really have an interest in hacking, but she mentioned it to Skye nonetheless. It certainly couldn't hurt to learn computer science.

Her schedule became thus: in the mornings, she'd train with May. For an hour in the afternoon, Fitz would tutor her in engineering (and he got no small amount of satisfaction of crowing "I'm tutoring _the_ Jemma Simmons", but one half-joking, half-not punch to his arm silenced his gloating for good). She and Skye would work on computer sciences and hacking for a little before lights-out.

When her own responsibilities were accounted for, Jemma found herself scheduled down to the minute. She didn't mind it. She liked being busy. It left less time for quiet, for thinking, and she was so tired by the end of the day that she passed out into dreamless sleep the moment her head hit the pillow. If she kept herself occupied, she had very little time to think about the empty room on the other side of hers.

Naturally, word of her studies made it to Coulson, who approached her at the lab after she'd been training, studying, and practicing her various new skill sets for a few weeks.

"I hear you've been doing some self-improvement." he said brightly.

She nodded, turning away from her microscope to give him her full attention. "Yes, sir. I have been. Is that all right?" She hadn't thought to ask whether it was actually _permitted_ to study outside of her specialty; she figured, if an issue had arisen, she'd just ask for forgiveness, and continue right on with doing what she wanted, of course. Unless Coulson asked her to stop really, really nicely. It made her feel nice to please people.

"It's perfectly all right." Coulson assured her. "I was just curious why you didn't ask me to help you with anything."

"Oh!" She felt sheepish instantly. "Well, I just figured you'd be busy… and I'd already asked the others… but what is it you'd want to train me in, sir?" No offense intended to her fearless leader, but she couldn't imagine him teaching her anything that May hadn't planned to… and teach her to do better, backwards, and in heels.

"Well, I certainly can't teach you engineering or CS, and May has you covered in combat." She was relieved that _he_ said it; it meant she didn't have to and risk hurting his feelings. "How about you just come see me once a week and we discuss your progress?"

Ah. So it wasn't that he was offering to train her, he wanted to attach _conditions,_ she realized with a reasonable amount of suspicion. "And by progress, you don't just mean my studies, do you?"

"No, I don't just mean your studies." Well, at least he wasn't being deceptive. She may not have liked it, but she at least respected that. "Your long-term well-being isn't just my concern as your friend; it's my responsibility as your boss."

Her first reaction was to feel petulant, like a scolded teenager. Granted, she could hardly yell, "You can't tell me what to do, dad!" and storm off, but the desire to do so reared its ugly head rather inexplicably, and it was only through great effort that she fought it off. There was nothing in Coulson's request that was unreasonable, either as a superior or as a friend… but it was, once again, an example of how people felt some unspoken need to protect her. Unlike the other times, this she could hardly meet by decrying it as unnecessary. His simple, almost meek, request was well within his purview to ask of her as her boss.

She agreed to a standing appointment of meeting Coulson every Friday at five pm. Jemma was reasonably apprehensive of the motives; they _were_ a spy organization, after all. Every work-related conversation could technically qualify as intel. She had no clue how far up the chain of command her discussions with him would climb, or how they might come back to bite her. Confidentially agreements weren't really a thing in SHIELD, so learning to guard and measure your words with co-workers and higher-ups was necessary to an agent's success, but… she had to trust that Coulson meant well. He had so far only had her best interests at heart, that much she knew. How else would SHIELD have been willing to ground a mobile base in various Middle of Nowheres, USA, for the bereavement leave of five agents, if not due to whatever strings Phil pulled as Fury's favorite?

As it was, her concerns about their meetings were soon rendered irrelevant, for not three full weeks had passed when her studies with Fitz and Skye were postponed indefinitely as Team Bus was upgraded full mission status rather suddenly. She could keep her trainings with May in the mornings, considering they were short a specialist and every capable arm in battle counted, but bereavement leave was officially over. It was time to get back to work.

"But we don't have a full team." Jemma overheard May hissing to Coulson in a whisper outside of her bunk shortly after she was given the order for wheels-up.

"We've been out of the game for three months. I'm not in a position to contradict the higher-ups right now." Coulson answered.

"'Out of the game for three months' is just another reason why we aren't prepared for a full-blown mission. One of several, in fact. Short-staffed and out of practice? Might as well march Fitz and Simmons out with targets on. And don't get me started on Skye. Grant had barely begun her training before-"

"May." He interrupted. His tone made it clear that he would take no further complaints on the matter.

May wisely said no more on the subject. In all likeliness, she wasn't saying anything Coulson hadn't already considered, but he was right; he _wasn't_ in a position to say no. Whatever favor he had curried with the big brass had clearly run short and could only be resupplied by him taking a few (and hopefully not literal) hits right now. "Wheels up in five." she answered him a few moments later, and satisfied that their impasse had been resolved for the moment they both stalked off in separate directions.

Once they had gone, Jemma was left to mull over what she'd overheard. She expected the news of their return to the field to shake her a little bit, but so far she felt nothing. She stood silently in her bunk, waiting for the other metaphorical shoe to drop and… nothing. No nerves, no impending sense of doom; nothing but the usual excitement of plunging headlong into the unknown. In some ways, it felt like her first mission all over again. There was no dread, just anticipation, and even some naive wonder.

It felt nice, but it was not without its edge of sadness. It was their first mission without Grant; no doubt his loss would be keenly felt throughout.

There was the gaping hole in the team still. They were down a specialist, minus a dependable gun in the fight. She knew Coulson and May would protect the less qualified agents to the best of their ability, and she was taking strides in her own training to close that gap everyday, but Grant's imposing presence provided an odd comfort that they were still learning to live without.

Jemma lifted her hand, absently toying with the ring around her neck. The pad of her fingertip ran over the edge, the ceramic smooth against her skin; the steel, cold. The tiny motion was soothing, calming.

It -life after Grant- was getting easier. _But,_ she thought to herself, _easier is not the same as easy._

xxxxxxxxxx

It would be a long plane ride with one stopover in New York to top-off their fuel supply. While they refueled, Phil gathered the team around the table to disperse the available information. There was not much to share, just that Centipede had, after several months off the radar, resurfaced in Madagascar. After weeks of long-distance recon (spying from space was about as long-distance as one could get, Skye noted drily) SHIELD satellite imaging had caught the heat signatures of a dozen or so people streaming away from their latest base of operations in the middle of the night. The next day, the base was largely abandoned; imaging couldn't pick up a single signature. Team Bus had been asked to investigate the lab.

Admittedly, it was not much to go on, but they had worked with less before.

"It makes sense, if you think about it," Jemma stated as she took diligent inventory of her supplies. It was hard to anticipate what she might need outside of her med-kit. There were dozens of scanners and scopes and "doodads" from which to choose. It would be easier to prepare if SHIELD had better specified what they were looking for, but Coulson had only been able to say "You know… stuff."

"What makes sense?" Skye asked as she watched Jemma pack, then picked up a portable thermal scanner and held it up like a gun. She even made a "pew pew" sound. While Jemma laughed, Fitz scolded her roundly, shaking his head in disappointment at her as he yanked the tool from her hands.

"Being based in Madagascar." Jemma explained after their mostly playful spat had passed. "It's one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, exactly what an organization like Centipede would try to take advantage of, if my conclusions about their experiments are correct."

"And what are your conclusions again?" Fitz asked. He said this half to her, half to the scanner, which he was inspecting with a scrutinizing eye to make sure it hadn't suffered any damage in untrained hands.

She said it in a whisper; not because the information was a secret, but purely for dramatic flair. "They're trying to duplicate the super soldier serum."

Skye blinked. "Super soldier serum? Like, Captain America and all that?"

"Precisely. Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending how you look at it- none of their scientists are Erskine's caliber. Consequently, I think they are looking to natural resources, hoping to duplicate his results."

"And if they were scientists worth their salt, they'd realize that that's highly unlikely." Fitz said with a scoff.

"It is?" Skye asked.

Jemma nodded at her. "It is very unlikely, but," she looked at Fitz, her next words measured, "not entirely outside the realm of possibility."

Again, he scoffed. "If you took a second to calculate the odds-"

"- Believe me, I know the odds." she countered. "The likeliness that any organization will duplicate Erskine's serum without SHIELD's top secret knowledge of the formula, guided purely by blind luck… well, it's about as likely as a Norse god buddying up with a billionaire and coming to save the world, isn't it?" She didn't even try to hide her smirk, while Skye hid her grin behind the sleeve of her shirt.

Fitz's eyes were narrowed, a feign at anger. "Don't think you can use Thor as a trump card anytime you'd like."

She pretended to groan. "But he's such a pretty trump card, and it only proves my point. No matter the odds, there's always room for the improbable; or what do you think the one represents?"

xxxxxxxxxx

They arrived in Madagascar around 5pm EST, which was dead in the middle of the night Eastern African Time.

"It's a shame it's already dark." Jemma said to Fitz as they carried a small crate containing their tech down the lowered ramp. "I'm sure Madagascar is lovely in the daylight."

"I'd give my manifold-imagery prototype to see a lemur up close." Fitz replied.

"Unfortunately, there's no time to sight-see." Coulson said as he approached the pair. "The situation in Madagascar isn't the most stable. We are here by special permission and have been told by their government that we only have two hours to get what we need and get back in the air, or else."

Even in the dim moonlight, Jemma could see Fitz went as white as a sheet. "Or else, what?"

May stalked by the then, her steps loud and intentional as she hustled down the ramp. "Better hurry so we don't find out." she called over her shoulder as she passed. Skye followed behind her at a jog. Coulson lagged behind with Fitzsimmons to make sure they got their equipment in safely.

"I don't understand why they would put restrictions on _us_ when _they_ are the ones who let a band of potentially-evil scientists keep a base on their island." Fitz groused to Coulson.

"I don't ask questions when getting what I need depends on the kindness of the government." Coulson replied. "And who knows whether they even knew that Centipede was here? They fled in the middle of the night. Not something you'd expect from an organization who operates in the open, now is it?" Fitz had no reply to that, and for that, Jemma was glad. Excited as she was to be back on the job, she was less than thrilled to be working the Centipede case again (and careful to refrain from considering _why_ that might be while working). She was comforted only by the knowledge that the base they were investigating was no longer active, but determined to remain alert. Just in case.

The base itself was on the small side, a quarter of the size of the warehouse they'd investigated just a few months before. The base Centipede had most recently occupied was a tiny, nondescript concrete shell, and in poor condition to boot. Native plant life crawled up the exterior walls. The windows were barred, but the glass behind it had been smashed out on more than one pane. Someone had taped cardboard over the holes, which probably did nothing to help keep pests or weather out, but certainly contributed to the overall dilapidated appearance of the place. Only one side had a vinyl awning, and it was in terrible shape; useless against sunlight, no doubt, let alone rain.

"This place is kind of a dump." Skye commented once they were inside. She shone her flashlight in a sweeping arc and sure enough, it did look pretty dingy. Unclean, even. Jemma half-expected vermin to scurry from where the light shone, but was relieved when, thankfully, none did. She was already on edge; dealing with cockroaches would really have been too much for her.

The beam from Skye's light caught a glimmer in the far corner, which Jemma chose to investigate. She turned on her headlamp as she stooped to get a better look. It was a small pile of equipment in various states of disrepair, the haphazard stack no higher than her shin. She carefully picked up one of the tools, a large, rapid-release hypodermic jet injector. It was a defunct model, the likes of which she'd only seen in sketches during her classes at SciOps, out of public circulation by ten years at least. As she held the needle up to the light, a gooey orange substance oozed from the shattered chamber, dripping down her hand. She was thankful she had had the good sense to don gloves before investigating.

"Fitz, I think I have something," she called, beckoning him over. He separated from the group and came to her side at a jog, carrying a transport case. She carefully placed the injector in the box, then put her gloves in a plastic evidence bag. She would examine the substance later.

"That looks ancient." Fitz said about the injector, and she nodded her agreement. Yes, "ancient" was a bit hyperbolic, but in terms of technology, ten years was practically archaic.

"Hints at the sort of funding Centipede has, I'd say." she replied.

"Or doesn't have. Was the last base this…" he trailed off, gesturing emphatically instead of finishing his sentence.

"No, not at all. It was much cleaner, for one thing. And armed. This…" she motioned toward the rest of the building, which was basically all one room, "isn't half as large as where we last encountered them. I wonder what changed?"

"Perhaps they lost their funding?"

"Perhaps." She was skeptical that it was that simple. If Centipede had any uncertainty about the attention their organization had attracted, no doubt it was all dispelled the moment she and Skye and Grant had snuck onto their previous base. "Or perhaps they're considering other options."

"Mobile options?" Without even saying so, Fitz anticipated the direction of her thoughts. She nodded, but said no more on the subject. It was something to discuss with Coulson, not with one another.

Once they were both satisfied that the injector was secure, they rejoined the group. The other three members were crouched around a metal box. It was a decent size, about four feet long and three feet high, and Jemma could only wonder at what might be inside it. Unlike the rest of the warehouse, the box seemed new, and likely possessed some sort of technology rendered unseen by the sleekly curving steel.

Skye was searching for a button or trigger, something to open the box, but so far was having no luck. May stood by, her fingers twitching restlessly by her weapon, and Coulson was… listening to it? At least, he had his ear pressed against the container, which Jemma found silly, but she wasn't about to say so.

"Fitz, why don't you-"

"- Good idea." From another container, he withdrew the full set of DWARFs. With Fitz's expert guidance, the majority of the drones took off around the room, scanning happily as they went. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, indeed. Fitz directed only one to stay near the box, hovering above it as it tried to scan the container three times from different points without any successes. Tempted as she was to see if another DWARF would do better, Jemma knew there was no sense in asking. If one failed, odds were the remaining DWARFs would be just as unsuccessful. They still had no clue as to what might be in the box.

"Should we just move it onto the Bus and deal with it there? We don't have a lot of time." Skye said, shifting from one foot to the other. She looked nervous, as if she were expecting enemy agents to descend from the rafters at any moment. Jemma hadn't considered

Coulson shook his head. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you don't take strange tech onboard without having a good idea of what you might be carrying. And this," he gestured to the box, "this is humming, so I can only imagine what it might be."

"Humming?" Jemma asked. "Is that why you had your ear pressed against it?" Coulson nodded. She turned to Fitz again. "What if the lock is sonic?"

"And the right frequency pattern could unlock it?"

"It'd be best to try to match the frequency before we even begin to guess a pattern. That's going to take too much time. We'd probably want to take the box back to the HUB for that." But if Coulson wasn't going to let them bring the box onto the Bus, their options were limited… She wouldn't think of that now. She had only capacity enough to worry over the present problem, the one right in front of her. If matching the frequencies didn't work, they'd try something else, and she refused to consider what "something else" might be until she were certain of its necessity.

He pressed one curled finger to his lips, considering her suggestion. "It's worth a try."

It took some of what Skye humorously called "MacGuyvering", but by using some of their tools simultaneously, they managed to emit a frequency identical to the box's and were pleased with the results. The lid opened easily with a hiss. Something like steam billowed from within the opening that now yawned before them, which Coulson was quick to disperse with a wave. Then, the five of them peered inside, Jemma's headlamp and Skye's flashlight illuminating the contents.

The first thing Jemma saw was white skin, fair and unblemished. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust in the darkness, to decipher form and shape when aided by their torches that struggled against the night, but eventually the angles and curves in her vision came together to reveal a man, naked and unconscious, inside the box. He was curled in the fetal position, his legs bent to his chest, his hands placed prayerfully beside his lips.

Dark brown hair. So dark it was nearly black.

"Jemma." Skye alone whispered. The others were rendered speechless, and rightfully so. As was she.

The glow of her headlamp had not moved from his face for seconds that felt like isolated eternities. She knew that face. She knew it well.

His name came rushing out of her, riding on the breath of a shocked exhale. "Grant." she cried. The last thing she felt was the cold concrete floor rushing up to meet her, and everything went black.

xxxxxxxxxx

Jemma had only ever fainted once before; in advanced human anatomy, during her first ever dissection of a human heart. She was young, the youngest in her class by a good six years, and eager to prove herself to her older, more mature classmates. She'd been nervous and clumsy, and her wide-eyed youthfulness made her easy prey for pranks. She only made one incision before her scalpel nicked a perfectly planted squib, splattering fake blood across her lab coat and goggles almost immediately. It gave her such a fright that she fainted dead away. She awoke to a concerned student aide waving a smelling salt in front of her nose, the professor fanning her gently with his hand even as he groused, "There's one every year". She never did learn whether he meant one fainter, or one prankster, and she could still hear the snickers of her classmates even though they tried to hide their smirks in their books, behind their tools, and so forth.

No professor bent over her this time, ready to level her with a disapproving stare. Only Coulson. Beneath her was not the aged tile of a college lab, nor the unforgiving cement of the Centipede base, but clean white sheets. A pillow had been placed under her head. She had somehow made it to her bunk. Had he carried her?

"Sir? What happened?" she asked as she tried to sit up.

His steady hands on her shoulders kept her horizontal. She didn't quite have the strength yet to resist. "Careful. You had a bit of a fall. You should take it easy." He said it how Coulson said most things; kindly, but without much room to argue.

As the fog in her mind cleared, she began to remember, though at first only in flashes. Skye's torch glowing in a sweeping arc. Something sticky and orange running down her hands. A box.

Grant.

"Did I dream it?" Her question came out sounding more desperate than she intended. It also, without context, incredibly vague, but she counted that as a credit to Coulson. She trusted she didn't need to specify what "it" was. She was right to risk assuming, for no sooner had the question left her mouth than Coulson's face clouded over. He seemed to be warring with himself, wrestling with what to say to her, how to respond.

After a few seconds of internal deliberation, he landed on a reply. She could tell, because she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard, preparing to deliver it. When he spoke, his voice was somber, and he watched her carefully to see how she took it.

"No. You didn't."

His words rang in her ears, the sound going tinny until it was overtaken by the thundering of her heartbeat. Within seconds, it felt like someone placed a great weight on her chest; an anvil, maybe, or a boulder. She couldn't move, her hands useless and uncooperative at her sides. She couldn't breathe.

The sensation of tears rolling freely from the corners of her eyelids, landing silently on the pillow and in her hair, grounded her. She gasped a great breath, the imaginary weight gone for the moment, and her hands flung to her face of their own accord, folded over her mouth as the gasp dissolved into one single sob.

"I want to see him." she decided, sitting up. Her head ached, but she didn't care. She swung her legs over the side of her bunk and stood, feeling very proud of her self when she only got dizzy once as she stumbled toward the door.

"Jemma! Wait!" Coulson called, grabbing her by the arm.

"Sir, I need to see him. I _need_ to."

"I know, and you will, but… Jemma, he was on a Centipede base for who knows how long. We have reason to believe that he may have been subject to experimentation."

She had come to that conclusion on her own (or rather, she trusted she would have if her mind weren't going a million kilometers an hour with the suffocating knowledge that _Grant is here_ ), but hearing Coulson say it was still chilling. She folded her arms in front of her. "So, what? Do you mean for me to just sit in my room? He's _here,_ sir. He's alive, and he's here. I need to see him. Please."

He looked hesitant. She considered what she'd say next, if he continued to refuse her.

"All right. But only for a second, and only because if anyone can figure out what they might have done to him, it's you." Coulson was visibly distressed at acquiescing, but nonetheless helped Jemma to her feet and led her to where Grant was being kept.

"He's not in the lab?" she asked nervously as they arrived outside the cage.

Coulson didn't meet her eyes as he replied, "Just a precaution," and opened the door.

The room was dark when Jemma entered, kept dim so its occupant could rest undisturbed. Grant lay on thin, narrow cot, a black blanket with a gray SHIELD logo draped over his body and pulled up to his chest. Someone had clothed him, or at least they had put him in a shirt; his chest and arms were now covered by a plain white tee, though it was just a tad too small. Most likely a loan from Coulson, then.

For a minute, she walked no farther than just a few feet past the door, staring at him wordlessly. She could see the rise and fall of his chest, hear the deep, easy breathing of a person fast asleep. He was just as she remembered, if a little more pale than before. She was almost afraid to walk closer, half-convinced that this was a dream, or a hallucination; if she got any closer, she worried he would disappear, vanish like a vapor.

She soon chanced a step forward, then another, until she was at his side. Her hand trembled as she reached out and touched him. Her fingers, curled into a fist, fanned out over the expanse of his breastbone. Her eyes slipped closed and she could feel new tears slide down her cheeks as she sensed his pulse, steady and strong, beneath her palm.

"Grant." she whispered and let her head drop, coming to rest on his chest, his heartbeat loud in her ears. What a beautiful sound it was.

Soon, she felt fingers begin to comb through her hair, moving through her auburn strands as they were pushed away from her face. She looked up to see him awake, watching her carefully, his face contorted slightly in an unreadable expression.

In her darkest moments, when her denial was at its strongest and fantasy was a refuge, she imagined what she'd say to him if ever they were reunited. Probably that she loved him. They never quite got to that part. Perhaps that she'd missed him, for that was only too true. She might even make a terribly impulsive suggestion; ask that they both leave SHIELD behind and run away together, ride off into the sunset, to the ending she felt certain they both wanted and deserved. But all that she managed, now that he was here, alive and in front of her, was a meek, broken, "Hello."

No other words passed between them, neither from her nor from Grant; no sooner had she spoken than his hand, previously entangled in her hair, closed around her throat.


	4. Chapter 3: I've Been Doing My Best

A/N: This chapter has been ready to go for a while, but I didn't want to post it without getting some sort of reader response… without hearing whether people actually wanted it to continue. So far this story has no reviews on both publishing sites (FF dot net and AO3) so I'm not sure what to think. If you like what you read, please, please review. I'll never put a review quota on my stories (I respect the people that do but I'm not that bold), but feedback is half of what makes writing fun for me and for pretty much every other fanfic writer out there. Also, I really like to know who I'm writing for!

 **Chapter 3: I've Been Doing My Best (What Else Can I Do)**

Grant didn't hurt her. Jemma made that abundantly clear to Fitz and Skye when she later regaled them with the tale. No sooner had his hand gone to her neck than Coulson intervened, followed closely by May. She hadn't realized either of them were watching. Apparently Coulson had stayed close by when she walked into the room, keeping an eye on the pair from a respectful distance. May had engaged the Bus' autopilot and was monitoring the cage via video feed. As soon as she spotted Coulson pinning Grant to the table, she rushed to his aide. The two of him got him restrained easily.

It never occurred to Jemma to use what little hand-to-hand training she had received to fight against Grant in that split-second. She was glad she didn't need to; she was still trying to wrap her head around the knowledge that he was alive, and suddenly having to defend herself against him? That really would have been too much. As it was, even when Coulson and May had him subdued, she chose not to run from the room immediately. She stayed where she was, watching aghast as Grant struggled against the people who were his co-workers - his _friends-_ and continued to stare her down with that same strange expression. His eyes were narrowed as he glared at her, the hard angle of his jaw betraying that his teeth were clenched together tightly.

"What happened?" Coulson asked sternly when he had relented the fight.

What happened, indeed? The whole incident had taken less than thirty seconds. Next to no time at all had lapsed between Grant to waking up and responding how he had. She had no idea what made him react to her that way. Not with love, like she (perhaps foolishly) had been hoping; not with indifference, which she would've tolerated even if she didn't understand, but with unmitigated hatred. That's what she'd seen on his face, she realized. That was the force behind his narrowed eyes and clenched teeth, behind his hands that stretched out not to console her, but with apparent intent to harm. No wonder she hadn't recognized it. He had never looked at her like that before.

There were a dozen possible explanations for why he had tried to hurt her. Had he mistaken her for someone else? Perhaps. Had she startled him? Hindsight being 20/20, she saw it was probably foolish on her part to get so close, and so quickly. Coulson had warned her that they believed he was subject to experimentation. It was only reasonable to guess that, believing himself to be in danger, he reacted in self-defense.

"Sir, can we speak privately?" Grant replied coolly. His eyes never left Jemma, his gaze intense. She got the sensation that, if he no longer regarded her as a threat, she was still seen as at the very least a pest. A wasp in the room.

Coulson looked first at May, then to Jemma. "Give us a minute, please." he said.

When Jemma didn't immediately move toward the door, May took her by the arm. Her tight grip was firm but not painful and left little room for argument, so she had no choice but to let herself be marched away, presumably to safety.

xxxxxxxxxx

"Safety", as it turns out, was just the briefing room where May had previously assigned herself to the post of surveillance. She called up Fitz and Skye, who soon joined them.

"Are you okay?" Skye asked, rubbing Jemma's arm in a gesture of comfort.

She nodded. "Yes, I'm fine. He didn't hurt me."

Both Skye and Fitz blinked. They looked at one another, clearly confused.

"She was asking about your head." Fitz explained. His mouth hung open as he processed the implications of her reply.

Skye was quicker to pick up on it. She turned to Jemma with wide, concerned eyes. "Wait a second. Did… did Grant try to hurt you?"

"I'm fine. I promise." She answered a little too quickly before adding, "May was there. She can tell you."

"He had his hand on her throat," May replied flatly as she turned up the volume on the video feed.

The picture was a little grainy, but they could still make out the shapes of Coulson and Grant easily. Coulson stood at attention near the foot of his bed, his posture rigid and tense. From his cot, Grant mirrored him; his back was as straight as a broom handle, hands balled into fists at his side. He didn't look at Coulson, but his gaze was directed upwards.

"What is he looking at?" Fitz asked. They all peered in for a closer look.

"The camera." May answered as Coulson began to speak.

"You haven't answered my questions so far, Agent Ward." he said.

"To be fair, sir, I asked to speak with you privately." Grant replied.

"We're alone, aren't we?"

He looked at Coulson pointedly, then back at the camera. Coulson followed his eyes.

"Ah. That." He didn't exactly sound apologetic. "Well, I'm sure you can understand surveillance as a security measure. You did just attack one of my agents, after all."

Grant's face remained impassive, but he did venture to ask, "Is she okay?"

"We stopped you before she could sustain any injuries, although I don't think she'll be keen on being alone with you for quite some time." Now it was Coulson's turn to look directly at the camera. Jemma didn't need to hear the words "that's an order" to understand that was what it was.

"What do you remember?"

Grant didn't answer.

"Do you know where you were in the three months you were missing?"

Again, no reply.

"Agent Ward, do I have to order you to answer my questions?"

That got a response. "Sir, respectfully, I again ask to speak with you privately. I have sensitive intel that I'd like to keep between us."

Intel? About what? Centipede? That was Jemma's guess, at least. But they had all been working on the Centipede case together. What could he have to say that he couldn't share with all of them?

"He's talking like he's still on a mission." Fitz noted in a whisper.

Coulson looked at the camera a final time. "May," was all he said, and no sooner had the name left his mouth than the feed went silent. They could still see Coulson and Grant, but the sound was muted.

The three of them stood and watched the interrogation play out for a few minutes. Grant, assured by Coulson that they could not be overheard, relaxed back into the bed, his eyes frequently slipping closed as he spoke. Coulson's rigid stance softened, too. He clearly didn't regard Grant as a risk. Jemma wondered if that was ill-advised. Yes, she still believed that Grant's reaction to her was mostly instinctual self-defense, but still. She was worried.

"He'll be fine." May said. Sometimes, Jemma swore she could read minds. "If Grant were going to attack, he would have already."

"I wonder what he's saying." Skye peered at the monitor, trying to read their lips.

"I have a program for that," Fitz said to her, but May stopped him from saying more on the subject.

"Coulson promised privacy. We won't infringe on that."

"Does he _deserve_ privacy, though?" Skye asked. She glanced briefly at Jemma before letting her gaze fall. "He tried to hurt you. How do you feel about this?"

Jemma shrugged, trying to feign nonchalance when what she really felt was conflicted. "I want to refrain from passing judgment until we have all the facts."

"Wise choice." May said, pushing away from the table with her palms. "I suggest we all do the same."

She stalked away, leaving the younger three agents alone.

"So, like… are we dismissed, or something?" Skye asked after a moment's silence had passed.

"I guess so." Fitz answered. He turned to Jemma. "Feel up to coming to the lab? I tried to get the samples from the Centipede base all nice and Petri-dished for you, but I know you're particular."

She smiled at him, but shook her head. "No, that's all right. There'll be time enough for that tomorrow." To be honest, she just wanted to return to her room. She wanted nothing more than to be alone to process everything, but she _also_ didn't want to be seen making a hasty retreat, lest she arouse anyone's worry unnecessarily. She waited until the other two had gone before her, remaining in the briefing room a few extra minutes after they had left.

Grant and Coulson were still talking, and though she couldn't hear them, it seemed to be going well. Coulson had even brought a chair over from the corner of the room and was seated near the head of his bed. She was glad to see that Grant wasn't being treated like a prisoner, or worse, like a criminal. She could only imagine what he'd endured in the months when they'd thought him lost; he deserved better than captivity.

xxxxxxxxxx

When Jemma returned to her bunk, it was with the intention to rest. The surge of adrenaline she'd felt from Grant's reappearance was beginning to wear off, and the knot at the back of her skull was beginning to make her head ache horribly. She went to her bedside table, rifling through the top drawer for some paracetamol. She punched two pills from the bubble pack, but dropped the second.

"Damn." The pill had hit the carpet noiselessly and rolled beneath her bed. She crouched, stretching blindly into the space beneath her mattress, but her fingers did not find the pill first. Her fingertips grazed something rough and scratchy. For a second, she was confused. What had she placed under her bed? Then she remembered. Forgetting the painkillers, she grabbed the cardboard box and pulled it out.

She hadn't taped the box shut, just folded the flaps one over the other. Maybe it was some subconscious signaling; her way of refusing to close the door on Grant entirely, no matter how far she shoved the thought of him away. She only need to lift one flap to see that yes, the box was just as she'd left it. All of Grant's belongings were present.

Well, all but two. The boots were still by the door, waiting for him, as ever. The ring was about her neck, and suddenly it felt as heavy as a millstone.

She didn't need these anymore, she knew. They were given to her conditionally, under the circumstances of his death, and well… he wasn't dead. She had no right to keep what wasn't hers when the rightful owner was just a few doors down. She was fine to return every single one of his belongings, wouldn't mourn their losses necessarily… except for the ring. She'd become accustomed to the sensation of it, hanging solid and cool beside her skin always. She was by no means superstitious, but she'd let herself treat his ring around her neck as something of a talisman. A little piece of him left behind, protecting her.

"Packing up?" Coulson said to her from the doorway of her room. She hadn't realized she'd left her door wide open and had failed to hear him approach.

"Sir!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "No sir."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." He stepped inside the room and shut the door behind him. "Can we talk?"

She nodded. "Certainly," she answered and motioned to the bed, the only available seating in the limited bunks. Once he sat, she did the same. "How is Agent Ward?" she asked.

Coulson's face betrayed nothing. "He'll be fine. I think he might be sorry about hurting you. Er, trying to hurt you."

"Oh, that's all right. It's truly nothing." She lifted a hand to her neck, rubbing the skin there as she remembered the way his hand had begun to wrap around her throat before May and Coulson intervened. "I know better than to surprise a startled agent. I'm sure he meant no harm. Why, there was one time when I managed to surprise May, and how quickly she turned on me-"

"Jemma."

"Sir."

Coulson's expression faltered, the corner of his lip twitching just slightly as he spoke again. He spoke slowly, no doubt hopeful that by pacing his words, she would grasp their enormity. "He was trying to kill you."

To Jemma, the idea of Grant meaning her any harm -let alone death- was laughable. She was ashamed that, when Coulson had finished speaking, she chuckled drily. "Is that that American wit at work, sir?"

"I'm sorry, but no. I wish it were. But he told me so; he meant to kill you."

"But… you said he's sorry?"

He hesitated. "We talked for a long time. He's… come to the realization that he may have been mistaken in attacking you."

"I'll say."

Coulson appeared uncomfortable when he spoke next. "Jemma… the intel Grant had seemed to implicate you as working with the organization known as Centipede."

She felt her cheeks grow hot. Scientifically impossible as it was, she knew her face was flushing an angry red even as the rest of her seemed to go cold. Her pulse was thundering in her ears. "Sir, I would never-"

"- I know." He assured her, putting one hand on her shoulder in a gesture of consolation that almost felt fatherly. "Besides being able to account for your location for the past year, let alone three months, I know that you're about as likely to turn on SHIELD as Steve Rogers himself. Trust me, I'm not worried about having a traitor in our midst." Then, his mouth turned down into a concerned frown. "But there's still the matter of Grant's account to consider."

She was relieved to know her innocence was not in question, but anxious to find out what would possess Grant to make such a claim. "Was he…" she stammered, "h-he was detailed in what occurred while he was in Centipede?"

"Yes." Coulson's voice was grave. "Quite detailed. The things he endured…" he let out a deep sigh,"Jemma, it's nothing short of traumatic."

She was grateful that he did not elaborate. She'd seen the research; her imagination filled the gaps easily, and a shudder passed through her. "But sir, I don't see why that would make him attack _me._ Even if he believed me to be Centipede-"

"- It's not just that he believes you work for Centipede. He believes you… well, to put it bluntly, he's convinced you are the one who _experimented_ on him. Obviously, we all know that's ridiculous, but it was very hard to persuade him otherwise."

Oh.

 _Oh._

 _Oh no._

"He's confabulating." she whispered.

"Sorry?"

She shook her head quickly from side to side, as if she were trying to shake loose some information just out of her reach. "It's something we studied in the one psychology course I took for my first PHD. His memories are… well, basically they've been distorted. Compromised."

"Distorted? Compromised? How? What do you mean?"

Her head swam as she rushed to explain. "Remember when that American journalist 'misremembered' his experiences in the Middle East and said he conflated memories? That wasn't quite right. Provided he wasn't outright lying to save face, what he would have been doing was _confabulating._ You yourself said Grant had endured great trauma as a hostage, and the brain is a tricky thing. If he was sedated for long periods of time, or subject to brainwashing-" she stopped suddenly, swallowing hard as all the pieces came together for her. Suddenly, everything made sense. Why he attacked her… it was a hard thing to forgive, but if what she was assuming was correct, she can hardly say she blamed him.

"If Grant thinks I'm Centipede, then in all likeliness…"

"- He's mistaken all those times you treated his wounds in the field with experimentation in Centipede." Coulson finished.

She nodded slowly. Sadly. Because if Grant believed her to be Centipede, if the only memories (however incorrect) he had of her were of him receiving harm at her hands… then what had he forgotten?

She ventured to ask. "Did he…" God, how could she even phrase this? "Did he remember us at all?"

"Us? As in, the team?"

Not quite, but, "That, too." is how she answered.

Once she had qualified her question, Coulson understood. "Ah." He shifted uncomfortably on the bed as he fumbled through a reply. "He remembered me. He remembers May. Don't know about Fitz and Skye." He didn't meet her eyes as he said, "I'm sorry, Jemma."

Yes. So was she.

"It's all right, sir." she replied, even though it wasn't. It really wasn't…. but what good would it have done her to rage against it? It was no one's fault, least of all Coulson's, and certainly not Grant's. It seemed just another trick of an increasingly cruel universe that the man she loved was returned to her, only for him to despise the very sight of her, and remember none of what they had once shared.

They discussed what would be done next. Jemma appreciated having her opinion considered by her superior; she knew it was a testament to the unorthodox, collaborative way Coulson ran his team that her input was not only asked for, but valued. It also spoke volumes about the level of care he had for the people working for him. They really were a family.

Once a plan had been formulated by the pair, Coulson reached out to HQ to inform them of Grant's rescue and to receive approval for their actions henceforth. It was after 9 pm EST (4 am EAT) when Coulson called a meeting in the briefing room with five of the six members of the team; the newly-recovered sixth was fast asleep in the cage, aided by a mild sedative administered by May. For the time being, Grant would stay on the Bus until the extent of his trauma was determined. Coulson had spoken directly to Agent Hand, who had been quite insistent that they keep Grant on board. Agent Simmons was their most gifted biochemist and therefore, SHIELD's best shot at determining what had happened to Grant while he was missing; there was also the matter that, if anything should happen, a team of six was a recoverable loss.

"Oh, how sweet." Skye had said sarcastically when Coulson alighted on that particular point. The others felt the same, but said nothing.

"There's just one more thing," Simmons began. It was very hard to keep her voice from trembling, and the easiest way to accomplish that was by removing all emotion from it. "Grant isn't how we remember him. He doesn't remember how he and I were connected." It was getting harder and harder to define what they were without saying "boyfriend and girlfriend", "significant other", etc., but she didn't feel comfortable using terms they had never landed upon themselves. "I'd appreciate," she continued, "if everyone were discreet in discussing our past, or better yet: don't bring it up at all."

It was a request the others all agreed to without question, though Skye's brow and nose wrinkled a little as she nodded and wordless glances were exchanged between May and Coulson. She wondered what conversation they might have about her behind closed doors later. When they were dismissed, Fitz walked Jemma back to her bunk.

"Are you sure?" he asked her in a whisper.

She nodded slowly, her mind made up. "It's better this way." she said with a forced smile, and looked toward the cage. "It's unfair to both of us for me to expect things to go back to the way they were, and with everything he's endured, I think he's in more need of a physician than a girlfriend. I can hardly do both well."

"Well, _that's_ not true." Fitz replied with a scoff. Yes, not entirely true. Jemma could -and had- managed to do both without issues before, but he made no further comment to contradict her. Instead, he conceded, "If this is what you want…"

She nodded again. "It's what I want." And again, that was not entirely true either. She didn't want any of this. If she'd had her way… but it was out of her hands. She'd always considered herself an optimist (or rather, as much of an optimist as a scientist could be), but was pragmatic enough to know when to accept a thing as an immutable truth.

This was the new norm. After months of living like he was dead, Grant was back and greatly changed. It would take adjustments on all of their parts, but perhaps none more than her. She could handle it. After living through losing him, this would be easy by comparison.

At least, she hoped so.

xxxxxxxxxx

They landed in the states early the next morning. Once safely on the ground, Jemma went to the cockpit to retrieve May. Remembering Coulson's indirect order, she was not permitted to be with Grant alone when she performed her first assessment.

She let May open the cage door, following her in after taking a deep, fortifying breath. Jemma was determined to keep her emotions in check, her head high… herself calm.

"Good morning." she said as she entered to find Grant sitting on the single chair in the room. He stiffened as she entered. She determined not to take offense as May wisely stepped forward on the off-chance Grant tried anything again. "You're probably ready to get out of this room, aren't you? Do you feel like you can walk down to the lab?"

He stood to his feet. "Lead the way." he said to her. It was the first time he had spoken to her directly since they found him.

She faked a smile and turned on her heel to walk out. Grant followed behind her, his pace slow. Melinda went last, keeping a close eye on both of them, no doubt.

Once in the lab, Jemma directed him to take a seat on one of the tall metal stools. Fitz had wisely made himself scarce, so she had the lab to herself.

She wouldn't do a full work-up; she was less concerned with his stamina and physical abilities than what may be going on with him internally. She had him stand on a scale and weighed him. She listened to his heartbeat and checked his reflexes. That was done easy enough. May stood a little closer when the time came to stick a needle in his vein and collect his blood sample. Jemma kept an eye on his reaction peripherally; even as the needle went it, his face remained unchanged.

"What will you do with my blood?" he asked.

"I established a baseline for every member of our team when we first started working together. I'll compare your new sample against the baseline and examine any changes." Then, she withdrew a long cotton swab from a glass jar. "May I?" She carefully put her hand on his chin, drawing down his bottom lip with gloved fingers. She moved slowly and deliberately, careful not to jerk in an unpredictable way, lest she trigger another reaction.

When all the samples she needed had been taken, she asked him to remove his shirt. His eyes narrowed immediately. Finally, a reaction!

"I'm looking for possible injection sites," she explained. "And atrophy."

"I'm not atrophied." he groused, but nonetheless did as she wished and removed his shirt. She tried not to blush as the discarded clothing landed on the table to his right.

Well, he was right about not atrophying. His biceps and pectorals were… it was hard to land on an adjective to describe his physique without sounding lecherous, but the longer the silence bore on, the more she felt pressured to speak.

"Things appear normal." was the answer she went with before walking behind him to check his back. Forgetting herself for a second, she ran one gloved finger over three of his vertebrae. He recoiled slightly from her touch. "Sorry." she whispered. "Does that hurt?"

"No." he answered after a tense moment. May, just a few feet away from him, stood straighter, her fingers twitching at the ICER on her hip.

One of her fears materialized when her hand trailed lower, near where his spine connected to his hips. Four red dots. They almost looked like allergy shots. She made a mental note of it, but said nothing. It, like everything else would go in her final report.

"How is your leg?" she asked, handing him his shirt as she walked around him.

"My leg?"

"Your wound. You were injured in the field." It was an image that she could not scrub from memory, no matter how she tried, but Grant did not seem to comprehend what she was saying. He was wearing a baggy pair of Coulson's athletic shorts, which made her next request easy. She pointed to his left thigh. "May I?" He made no move away from her. She only needed to roll the fabric up an inch or two above his knee. The skin there was smooth and clear, not jagged like she would have expected from stitches, not even raised and silver like a well-healed scar would be.

She wanted to look closer, was sorely tempted to make him remove the shorts and strip to his boxers so she could be sure that she had looked in the right place… but she knew she would find nothing, and she wasn't about to ask Grant to make himself more uncomfortable just to sate her curiosity. She had more than enough to work from for now.

"Sorry." she said, returning his pant leg to normal. "I must have been mistaken." Jemma looked to May then. "He's finished for now." Her gaze returned to Grant then, meeting his eyes finally after avoiding them for most of her examination. "I'll take a look at your samples, see what I find. You should continue resting for now. Doctor's orders." She tried to smile at him, but it, like her joke, fell flat. He may have even rolled his eyes. Fine, telling him to rest probably went without saying, but she felt it necessary to make a statement about his well-being. Perhaps by seeming concerned with his welfare ("Seeming"? She _was_ concerned) she could win some of his trust back over time.

As she watched Grant walk away, May at his side, Jemma felt all the emotions she had successfully suppressed in his and everyone else's presence come welling up. Unable to wrestle them into submission any longer, they came bubbling to the surface in one choked sob. She ran to the supply closet, leaning with both palms pressed against the steel shelves as the tears came. She hated crying. She felt as if she'd cried more in the past few months than she had in her entire life. She wanted to be past this. Why couldn't she be past this?

Why was the world so determined to be unfair?

The sobs subsided soon. What felt like forever was, in all honesty, just a few minutes. She wiped her tears with her sleeve, stood up straighter, and faced the lab again. There was so little she could do, so much that was outside of her control. At least here, in the lab, she was the master, subject only to the rules of science.

In the back of her mind, Jemma began to mull over the details she had gathered about him in the past twelve hours. Memory loss. No atrophy. No significant weight loss. Four injections. No scar. There was a chance that Grant returned to them in better physical shape than they'd left him in, and rather than please her, it scared her.

She picked up Grant's blood sample, walked to her microscope, and set to work.


End file.
